Bank teller surprised by a 47% pay increase after resigning, boss insists that it is not a counteroffer but a raise that had already been approved for them, but refuses to undo their resignation: 'I am honestly baffled'

Got a huge raise after I quit

So this is a first for me. I've work[ed] at a bank as a retail employee for 9 months now. It is my first corporate job and I recently received a better offer from another bank. Better position, bigger bank so better name for my cv, higher pay (5% + bonuses, which we do not have in my current bank). In general it is a better proposition with also better development in the future as the bank I work at has one branch in my country so no room to grow.

When I informed my manager [that] I have decided to resign she did not make a counter offer. She wished me the best and it was a very typical and okay conversation.

The next day I get a notification on an app where we’d see our gross salary and the company has submitted a request to change my salary. It went up by 47.14% (yeah [that] is the exact percentage guys, from 1335 to 1967.29).

I ask[ed] my manager if this is some kind of counter offer. She tells me it is not. It is the raise I was approved to get and since I quit they changed it. I asked her why I was not informed about a possible raise, especially of that magnitude, yesterday. She says she didn’t know it was approved and she received the approval after our meeting and by that time the resignation request had been sent to management and there is no undoing it.

I am honestly baffled. How does your manager [request] a raise of 47% [for you] and not tell you that when you tell them you are unhappy with your compensation.

Why is she letting you quit if she is so satisfied with your work?

And for anyone wondering, I was not underpaid. In my new job [my pay will be] 1400 gross. Which is what the market salary is basically in most banks around here.

After a few conversations with coworkers with this new salary I am the highest paid employee in my department (getting paid more than even senior employees with 20 years of experience in the banking sector) but I am not worth keeping.

Do I feel like I might be the most unlucky person in the world? Yes.

Do I believe it is a company scam? Kinda.

What do you guys think?

These decisions are never made at the level directly above the employee either, which adds a lot of inertia to the process. Managers usually won't control what compensation increases for their direct staff. They might do "their best" to put a good word in each calendar year when the annual reviews roll around, but that decision is probably coming from two, three, or even four steps up the chain above them, and at that point, whether or not it happens is based entirely on other things.

Employees that are already on the payroll and the cost they represent are sort of a "known" quantity, and the chance that a payrolled employee goes off looking for another job now or in the immediate future simply because they didn't get a raise this year (or the year before) is slimmer than we might think. So the cost of having to replace them, which is high, is effectively multiplied by that slim likelihood of having to replace them. This new figure is balanced against the cost of giving them a raise, which is quite small now, but potentially large if everyone at their level were to suddenly find out and demand the same raise, which is often how employees reason these things through.

It happens all too often that an employee, who has repeatedly asked for pay rises that have either been declined or never eventuated, will be met with a sudden offer for a counteroffer only after they find another job offer. Like in this story, they might even have a magical raise dropped in their lap as if it was happening anyway. 

And that's because, with a concrete offer in hand, the cost associated with your position has just gone way up. The chances of having to replace you are now 100%, so that high cost of replacement—that is the cost of the recruitment process, the time it will take to get the incoming staff as efficient as you, and the loss of all of that productivity in that entire time in between—has nothing to be weighed against and has suddenly come to fruition in full force.

I would generally always advise against taking a counteroffer. Usually, once it is known that you wanted to leave and would have left when provided the chance, puts a big target on your back unless there are very reasonable people making the decisions at the top and everything is suitably straightened out. But at this big of a pay increase, it might just be worth the risk.

That is, if it even is an option to stay at this point. Their resignation has already been tendered, so this feels more like the intention here is actually a “Here's what you missed out on” play rather than a legitimate raise.